That's right. Kanye West is at it again and breathing new life into the term "Hype Beast".
How? It all began with a tweet earlier this month. All Mr. West stated was "June Eighteenth." Then came the speculation. What could it mean? Kim's due date? A new single perhaps?
No and no. JUNE EIGHTEENTH marks the release of his his much-awaited 6th solo album and of course, the build up is keeping us at the edge of our seats. So, now the world knows the meaning behind the cryptic "June Eighteenth", but that isn't enough to increase album sales and Yeezy knows this (Yeezus knows all).
On May 19th, Kanye updated his website with a flash-style map that would reveal the locations for the world premiere of his latest single "New Slaves". He was in 66 places at once as the video was projected onto 66 different buildings in the United States, Europe, and Australia. This was COMPLETELY unexpected and absolutely brilliant. What better way to build anticipation and generate word-of-mouth! The only thing missing was a Vancouver launch...he forgot about us Kanye-dians.
But all in all, this is how you increase physical compact disc sales. For a soon-to-be obsolete item you need to pull a Kanye. That is, a big, bold, and brilliant Marketing Artiste move. THIS, is how you execute a world premiere. THIS is how you get the masses talking. THIS is some NEXT LEVEL MARKETING.
Check out the Williamsburg premiere
Black Skinhead SNL premiere
In case you were interested in his other great marketing schemes:
2010: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
He made this film to generate hype for his album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
And who could forget...
"That song evokes so much emotion, and four minutes of imagery limits the ideas that you're supposed to give for the songs, so I had to do three."-Kanye West on Jesus Walks
Jesus Walks 1
Jesus Walks 2
Jesus Walks 3
